


In Which the Winchesters are Dysfunctional Idiots, and Bobby Tells a Story

by sobrecogimiento



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobrecogimiento/pseuds/sobrecogimiento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic is based on a discussion of 9091’s head canon, which is here: http://9091.tumblr.com/post/7501459701</p><p>So, this is more specifically based off of the last two paragraphs: the first time Dean is allowed to go hunting as an actual adult with his dad and probably some other hunters, he messes up and John bitches him out. I wrote a make-it-better fic, I guess, with bby!Sam being cute, in the form of Bobby telling a story to a post-S6 Dean who is worried to death about his Sammy. And some surprise!wincest may have snuck in like a ninja. Because that’s what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which the Winchesters are Dysfunctional Idiots, and Bobby Tells a Story

When Dean barges in, Bobby doesn’t even have to look up from the musty old tome he’s translating to know that it’s one of _those_ days. He does anyway, of course, politeness and all that, and so doesn’t doesn’t miss the way Dean’s hand cards through his dishevelled hair, the way his too wide, too bright green eyes dart around like he’s checking for wards, salt lines, devils’ traps. For all Bobby knows, he is, just purely out of habit.

 

“What’s eatin’ you?” he asks grudgingly, like he don’t already know.

 

“It’s Sam, Bobby,” he says (because it’s always Sam). “It’s just—it’s everything, and I don’t know what to do.”

 

Bobby takes a sip of whiskey from the flask on his desk and regards Dean steadily, manages not to roll his eyes. It takes some effort. “He just got a year and a half of soullessness and god knows how many of hell shoved back into his head. What do you expect?”

 

“I don’t know.” Dean sighs, exasperated, sinking into one of the chairs in front of the desk and rubbing a hand across his face. “I mean, sometimes he’s fine. And sometimes he’s in pain or he gets flashbacks and it sucks, but I can deal with that, but other times he just goes—goes vacant. Sometimes for days, and he’s functional, but he’s just on autopilot, and I’ll try and do anything just to get a rise out of him, and it doesn’t even work most of the time, and when it does, he fucking snaps at me and pulls away and damn it, I can’t _help_ him when he’s like that.”

 

He lapses into silence and slumps forward in the chair like he’s deflated, elbows on his knees. He looks exhausted like this, Bobby notes, old and tired. His eyesight ain’t 20/20 anymore, but it don’t take much effort to see the dark patches under Dean’s eyes, or the way his shirt hangs off of him. Bobby could swear he’s lost weight, and as much as Dean loves food, that’s a problem.

 

“How much you been sleeping?” he asks carefully.

 

Dean shrugs the question off almost irritably. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

 

“Course it matters!” Bobby half-shouts. “Damn it, boy, you look half-dead.”

 

“I’ve been taking care of Sam,” Dean says in his defence, like it’s obvious, like that trumps everything, because in his book, it does. “It’s kind of a full time job.”

 

This time, Bobby does roll his eyes at the stubborn, pig-headed idjit. “And what do you think Sam’s been doing?”

 

Dean gives him one of his, clueless-but-pretty looks, with just a hint of pissiness that Bobby knows something about his brother that he doesn’t.

 

“Sam called me,” Bobby tells him. “He says you’re so damn worried about him that you’re not sleeping and you’re barely eating and going by the booze you’ve been drinking your liver ain’t thankin’ ya.”

 

“But I’ve been—” Dean protests, startled.

 

“I know,” Bobby says, before he can get any further. “You’ve been taking care of him. But he’s been taking care of you nearly as long, and it’d be a sight easier on him if you gave a damn about yourself once in awhile.”

 

Dean shakes his head. “It’s not that easy. I’ll try to stay up until he starts having nightmares so I can wake him, and then he’ll start thrashing around soon as I’m asleep. I don’t get any time off with this.”

 

“So, find a way around it,” he suggests. “Get a bed you can both sleep in. Ain’t like we couldn’t pry you two apart when you were kids.”

 

For a second, Bobby’s pretty sure he’s stumbled upon something he’d rather leave hidden and buried, because Dean stammers and goes red right to the tips of his ears.

 

Hurriedly, he continues, “You ain’t gettin’ it, Dean.”

 

“What?” Dean asks, calming visibly at the distraction.

 

“Look, remember when you were, I don’t know, maybe sixteen?” he says. “Me and your old man and a couple other hunters were going after some rogue skinwalkers down by El Paso.”

 

“My first epic screw-up,” Dean replies, grimacing. “You know, up until a few years ago I counted that as one of the worst days of my life. So can we not dwell on it and get to the point?”

 

“Remember what Sam was doing that week?” Bobby prompts.

 

“Sam was sick,” Dean says immediately. “But it was spring break, so he wasn’t upset about missing school.”

 

“Yep,” Bobby acknowledges. “Except he wasn’t sick.”

 

“Of course he was sick,” Dean scoffs. “You think I don’t know if—”

 

“Shut up and listen,” Bobby orders, and Dean quiets. “After watching John lay into you like that, I really wanted to say something about how old you were and how hard you were trying and how there’s a difference between discipline and just not being fair. But I figured, you ain’t my kid, you’re his, and I oughta keep my mouth shut. By the time we got back, you looked like a dog that’d been kicked one time too many and like you were gonna cry. But then Sam came out of the bedroom whining about how he didn’t feel well and asking you to make him soup or somethin’.”

 

Dean nods and grins slightly, remembering.

 

“And I’ll tell you,” he goes on, “I’d seen you boys before and I’ve seen you one hell of a lot since, and sick or no, I have never seen Sam as goddamn clingy as he was that week. That first night, when you were going to put him back to bed, he stopped in the middle of the living room and threw his skinny little arms around you and said, ‘You’re the best, Dean. You always take care of us.’ And you didn’t see it, but he glared daggers at us over your shoulder. Room full of ornery old hunters, and it took them about a second to go from being judgemental to staring at their boots like they’d just been yelled at by their grandma. Made us think about what we were all doing at sixteen, and what kind of father John was if you were the one taking care of things, and what kinda pressure that’s gotta put on you.”

 

“Bobby, Sam was just a kid,” Dean protests. “He didn’t even know what was going on.”

 

If Bobby got a nickel for every time the Winchesters went from plausible denial to just plain stupid, he’d be a rich man. “He played you, Dean,” he says pointedly. “And he had a lot better idea of what was going on than you think. It took us a whole week to clear up the rest of those skinwalkers, and John was such a bastard that he wouldn’t let you do a damned thing. I swear, it was like Sam had a homing beacon on you, because every time your dad said something or him and the others were discussing tactics and you started to look a little down, he’d pop up out of nowhere and start beggin’ for food or tea or cough syrup or homework help. And you went from lookin’ like hell to lookin’ like you had some self-confidence again every time he so much as smiled at you.

 

“Now you,” Bobby continues, pointing at him meaningfully with one rheumatic finger, “are such a stubborn shit that if he’d tried to cheer you up by talkin’, you wouldn’t have listened. But Sam was smart enough to get through to you the only way he knew how.”

 

Dean fishmouths a few times and scratches the back of his head in bewilderment, almost comically shocked.  “Was that why you and dad had that fight?” he asks finally.

 

“Yep,” he confirms, taking another sip of whiskey. “Right before I was about to go, I was in the kitchen with John and Sam. You’d just left to do a sweep of the property, make sure no one left nothin’. I forget what we were talkin’ about, but I remember John looked at Sam and said, ‘You’re not sick’. And Sam just smiled like he didn’t have a care in the world and said, ‘I know’. So John was about to go off on him, which probably wouldn’t have ended pretty, and you don’t need all the details, but me and him got into it. I stood up for you boys, is all. That was our first fight, and after that we didn’t talk for awhile.”

 

“Well, uh . . . thanks,” Dean says, after staring dumbly for a minute and clearing his throat. Bobby experiences the frequent urge to grab his shoulders and shake him, tell him he’s one of the best men he knows and that he shouldn’t be so goddamn surprised when he discovers that someone cares about him. He hasn’t rushed to his father’s defence, though, and god knows that step was a long time in coming.

 

Bobby sighs and settles back into his chair. “I don’t know where you got this half-baked notion that taking care of your brother is a one-way street”—ok, that’s John’s fault, but he ain’t gonna mention it—“but it ain’t. Sam takes care of you plenty. He’s just gotta work twice as hard because you’re a self-sacrificing fool that won’t take a bit of comfort when it’s offered to ya, unless it comes in a bottle.” He toasts him with his flask of whiskey and drinks for emphasis.

 

 “Oh,” Dean says quietly. He sits there and fidgets for a minute and looks like the world’s biggest five-year-old.

 

Bobby rolls his eyes so hard he’s afraid they’ll stick. “So go find him, idjit!”

 

“Yeah, ok,” Dean says, standing, and nearly trips over his own damn feet trying to get out of the room.

 

Bobby sees them a few minutes later through his front window, shoulders hunched in towards each other in the middle of the salvage yard, standing too close. Dean says something—a sort of roundabout Winchester apology, he’ll bet—and Sam’s forehead pinches in reply. Even from this distance, he can see the sudden flash of his mouth, read the words, _Are you ok?_ And, as if on cue, Dean nods.

 

Smiling, he starts to return to his desk, give them their moment without creepin’ at the window, when Dean hugs his brother, and he frowns, watching, suspended in place. There’s something desperate about the spontaneity of it, the way Dean buries his head in Sam’s shoulder. For a second, Bobby thinks it’s overkill, because now Sam really looks worried. But then, Dean raises a hand to cradle Sam’s face and he relaxes, lines evening out, and leans in close enough for their foreheads to touch, hand fitting neatly along the side of Dean’s neck. And then—Bobby gets back to the chair behind his desk so fast he’s almost running. He shouldn’t be seeing something that intimate, and more than that, he sure as hell don’t _want_ to.

 

But then again, whole world’s gotta be ending before those two boys will so much as hug.

 

Goddamn Winchesters.


End file.
